How to Raise a Pet Raccoon
By Anna Tatelman

1. Don’t adopt a wild raccoon. Even if your neighbor’s Rottweiler murders raccoon’s mother and siblings. Even if raccoon keens all night until you swaddle him up like the baby you never had.

2. After failing step one, research. Ignore memory of ex-husband Derrick laughing, “Is a furry garbage can supposed to be some kind of baby-substitute?” Focus on encouraging messages from the raccoon owners you follow on Instagram.

3. Bottle-feed several times daily. Don’t let raccoon overeat because it can cause serious health complications. You, on the other hand, should feel free to eat as many peanut butter cookies as you want now that Derrick can’t lecture you about developing cottage cheese thighs.

A Bottle Cap
By Sean Burke

“Swear to God,” Uncle Ted said, “they ought to herd them all onto an old aircraft carrier, paint it pink, and set it afloat in the Atlantic.” Deep chuckles rumbled across the uncles and adult male cousins assembled in a circle of rusting aluminum lawn chairs in Ted’s backyard. Dad laughed too, looking around like he knew he shouldn’t be.

The smell of the grass cut fresh that morning had already burned away leaving cigarette smoke, beer, and grilling beef to scent the McCarthy-Patelli annual picnic. Ted, my mother’s brother, was a Patelli and Patellis didn’t require shade nor did they ever feel compelled to offer it to guests. As I stood next to Dad struggling to twist the cap off the beer I’d been sent to fetch, sweat ran freely off my eleven-year-old sunburned, closely-shorn scalp and down my apple-shaped McCarthy face to soak into my three-quarter sleeve Rangers jersey. Mom told me not to wear it because I’d be too hot but the Rangers were pretty much the only thing my Patelli cousins talked about.

We’ve Always Been Dying to Dance
By Kate Axeford

It was too late for the grandkids when the dancing kicked off, but our party began long ago. 100 seconds to midnight, and it’s D-I-S-C-O. We lit up as jellyfish phosphoresced, octopuses threw shapes and the bass kaboomed. Chat-up lines were everywhere—molluscs whispered into shell-likes, and deep in the depths, where we’d rock-pooled as children, we tittered as a mussel got pulled.

Saturday night fever. The temperature rising. Tentacles, fins, floundering, failing. And frantic for oxygen amongst all our toxins, the silver-shoaled mirrorball’s spun gasping, hypoxic.

‘Spin faster,’ we squealed. ‘We’ve energy to burn. And you can’t stop us now.’

 It wasn’t just chemicals; we had a glint in our eyes. Glittery, glistening, we spiraled, euphoric. We were fast, high—just where we wanted to be. We were having a whale of a time.